


Denerim's Most Famous Doctor

by greyvvardenfell, moonmoth (greyvvardenfell)



Series: Love Like Yours 2020 [7]
Category: Dragon Age: Origins, The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossover, Gen, Mild Language
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:54:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24333175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyvvardenfell/pseuds/greyvvardenfell, https://archiveofourown.org/users/greyvvardenfell/pseuds/moonmoth
Summary: What if you just smashed my two favorite fandoms together and also added lore of my own? Y'get this.Julian finds adventure wherever he goes, and defeating an Archdemon is the biggest one yet.
Series: Love Like Yours 2020 [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1753846
Comments: 11
Kudos: 2





	Denerim's Most Famous Doctor

**Author's Note:**

> For the Love Like Yours prompt "Play It Again, Sam"

An angry wind howled through Denerim. People hunched into its teeth as they perused the meager selection of market goods: with the farmland outside the city either in flames or overrun by foul, twisted creatures and few merchants willing to brave the war-torn roads, food was quickly becoming scarce. Only the docks still teemed, kicked ant hills bustling with those lucky enough to buy an escape and the clatter and shouts of unloading cargo, now more precious than ever. Most proprietors hired guards to protect their interests long ago, though their new employees often caused more problems than they solved. 

Sailors blessed the wind that pushed them away from Ferelden's shores. It brought little joy to anyone else.

At the westernmost corner of the walled-off alienage, huddled between the larger buildings that shielded it, a door masked by wrinkled wanted posters and announcements clicked shut. The tall, slender man who emerged ran a hand through his auburn hair and sighed. On top of the food shortage, he had run out of yet another healing herb. One supplier refused to leave the city. Another had been torn apart between Highever and Amaranthine, set upon by starving wolves fled north from the Brecilian Forest. The black market dealer with whom he'd struck up an uneasy friendship over card games and rum shook her head whenever he tried to approach, warning him away before he could ask yet again. 

Soon, he would have patients he couldn't help. 

And what is a doctor with no one to cure?

The neighborhood buzzed with conversation, rumors whispered through the walls that the trouble in the alienage had at last been solved. The man had smiled to hear it; he liked the elves, and had he known of their plight sooner he would've fought tooth and nail for them himself. He'd long nurtured a habit of taking on more than he could carry to spare others the load. One more bruise, one more night in Howe's prison cells… he could handle it. He always had.

But someone had beaten him to the punch this time, it seemed. Several someones, in fact: a strapping young man with a peach fuzz beard and the half-pointed ears of the elf-blooded; a whip-thin woman whose piercing yellow eyes hid beneath dark brows; a kindhearted old mage in Circle robes and a girl who sang like her bowstring; a lithe, handsome elf covered in scars and tattoos that spoke of a life best left unspoken and a stern-faced Qunari whose skin told no story at all; a dwarf, loud and bawdy, with hair as red as his own. And leading the motley bunch was another dwarf, pale and sad, whose broad shoulders sagged beneath a weight he knew well. 

The man ducked into an alley he knew would cut a fair few minutes off the walk to the tavern. The newcomers had come through the market instead (a sure sign that none of them had spent much time in Denerim), just as the sun set. It was early to start drinking for the night, but he had a mission. Another opportunity like this was unlikely to present itself so cleanly. It practically dropped itself in his lap, after all, and no one could claim that Doctor Julian Devorak, known by so many names across so many countries that even he struggled to keep them straight, was a tentative man. He chased adventure like some chased lovers, or wealth, or happiness. 

And he could hear the siren song just inside the Gnawed Noble's private room.

"Hey." A gruff voice stopped him as soon as he cracked the door. "Private party. Unless you're bringin' more of that mead, then you can come in."

Doctor Devorak laughed. Whoever that was, he was a man after his own heart. "If you like the mead," he said, lingering outside with his fingers wrapped around the edge of the door, "I'd suggest you try the Salty Bitters next. Same sort of aftertaste, and, if it doesn't get me thrown out of here, my sources tell me the mead barrels were recently watered down. Preparing for the Landsmeet, you know. Nobles can never tell the difference."

"He has sources," a new voice drawled. "Well, well. How promising."

"Oh, wait, let me guess: you don't trust him! Why is it we have to go through this with every new face, Morrigan? Hasn't the last year of travel done anything to that icy shell of yours?"

"My shell is quite intact, Alistair. I can add you to it with but a thought…"

A blue-white light filled the private room, centering, as far as Julian could tell through his narrow view, in the palm of the yellow-eyed woman. Interesting, he thought. At least two mages, but only one from a Circle?

"Would you guys please stop?" another speaker interjected tiredly. "I'm fucking exhausted and I just want to go one night without the two of you sniping at each other, okay?"

"Ha! Good luck with that, there, Reyja. Might as well wish for Orzammar to open the cavern while you're at it," the first voice said, echoing strangely out of a nearly-empty tankard.

Closest to the door, two of the other travelers ignored the banter of their companions, engrossed in a conversation of their own. Julian's keen ears, honed by years of roaming across Thedas, picked out the lilt of an Antivan accent and the precise flipped syllables of an Orlesian one. If he was counting correctly, that left only two voices unaccounted for.

"You might as well come in," said whoever had stopped the earlier argument. "But it's been a long day, so…"

Julian wasted no time striding through the double doors. Assembled at a round table in the center of the room, with weapons glinting in the chandelier's candlelight, sat a collection of road-weary people. Every one of them bore dark circles beneath their eyes and the strain of interacting with the same disparate personalities for too long. 

"Who are you?" asked the voice who had invited him in. It belonged to the pale dwarf. Reyja, he believed she'd been called.

He offered his most dashing grin. "You can call me Julian. I heard you, and your friends too, of course, took care of the slavers in the alienage."

Reyja blinked at him, unimpressed. "Yeah? You and half the city, apparently."

"Did you come for an autograph? I would be more than happy to provide one." That was the handsome elf, breaking away from his conversation with the archer girl to wink at him.

"I'll take what I can get," Julian laughed. "Ah, by the way…" He greeted the elf in careful Antivan, testing the waters. His golden eyes widened as he returned the words.

"Ah, it is nice to speak my native tongue again," he said. "Who taught you to roll your Rs so prettily, my friend Julian?"

"Not now, Zev." Reyja furrowed her brow and leaned back in her chair, folding muscular arms across her chest. "If you're here for, I dunno, fawning, or whatever…"

"No, no, not at all!" He realized his blunder too late and bit his lip. "Not, erm. Not that you don't deserve it. What you did for the alienage, that was something else! You cut through those Tevinters like a hot knife through butter."

Only raised eyebrows and silence met his praise. 

"B-but, ah, no, that's not why I came. You wouldn't happen to be in the market for another set of hands, now, would you?"

More silence. Reyja and the young man to her left — Alistair, Julian thought — shared a perplexed look. 

"You want to join us? Why?"

He took a deep breath and rolled his dice, casting his hopes out for the group to catch or drop as they pleased. "Denerim is falling apart. You've seen that with your own eyes. I've traveled enough to know it won't get any better without action. And you… you can act with the best of them. Whatever you're fighting for, it must be a worthy cause to have drawn such talent."

Alistair snorted. "I suppose it is, if you consider averting the end of the world a worthy cause."

"Oho? I've heard the stories, the gossip. This couldn't be related to what happened down south, could it?" Julian took a careful step further into the room.

Reyja eyed him, but let him approach. "Depends," she said. "What, exactly, have you heard?"

He turned somber. It looked strange on him. "That an army of monsters overran the king and massacred every man and mabari in his army. Gruesomely. And that every loyal Fereldan owed it to Cailan to keep an eye out for his betrayers, the Grey Wardens." He decided to hedge his bets on honesty and pressed on through the guarded stares. "I've spent a lot of time on battlefields and I know the faces of people who've seen too much. And, well, being in my line of work, I hear things. Not to worry, though: your secret is perfectly safe with me."

Whether the group believed him or not, some tension dissipated. Julian sent a silent thank-you to the small elven girl who had whispered to him that the Wardens themselves saved her from slavery as she chased a skinny cat through his back garden. Children knew more than people gave them credit for, he thought absently. _Best contacts I ever made._

"Now," he continued, flinging his arms wide with theatrical showmanship. "As I'm sure you're aware after experiencing what our dear Rendon Howe and his friends have done, we're not too fond of the high and mighties in this part of town. Cailan was a good man, but we were always suspicious of the company he kept. That is to say: anyone who opposes Loghain, especially in such a public arena, I consider worth following. You'll find friends here, Wardens, if you know where to look." He finished leaning casually against the wall and smiled again.

Reyja considered him thoughtfully. "Listen, we're running out of time to do what we have to do. Like you said, the nobles are assembling for the Landsmeet as we speak. I'm not sure what will happen after that. So what are you asking for?"

Julian let himself grow serious. "A chance. The chance to fix what's broken. I'm a doctor… I like that sort of thing."

"A doctor?"

"With some extra skills on the side, of course. I'm not too shabby with a blade or two, and I know people everywhere. Not only that, but I can speak to them in their own words." He nodded to the elf and the archer, and even risked eye contact with the reticent Qunari. "And I want to help. All this sitting around, losing more people every day, being spoon-fed lies instead of bread because lies are cheaper… it's not for me. If I'd known you were more than Loghain's scapegoat, I would've sought you out long ago." Burying his regret with a shake of his head, Julian met Reyja's eyes. "What do you say?"

The quiet archer girl piped up before anyone else could speak. Rich Orlesian tones colored her every word. "What kind of medicine do you practice, Doctor? Are you a mage?"

He wrinkled his nose. "Magic? Oh, no. Nonsense. Ah, no offense to you, ma'am," he appended with a guilty glance at the older woman in Circle robes. "But I'm no Chantry lackey who'll go running to the templars for a sleight of hand trick or a burst of sparks for the kids. All I do is mix things up, add a bit of this and a bit of that. Every potion knows what it wants to be, you know. Sometimes you just have to coax it in the right direction."

The woman from the Circle leaned close to Reyja and murmured something into her ear. Julian swallowed hard. One hand drifted to the base of his throat before he could stop it. Stricken, he took the moment the travelers looked towards their apparent leader and the mage to mask the movement as a quick sweep of his hand through his hair. He realized too late that one person, the raven-haired woman who had summoned ice to her hand, caught him.

"We'll have to discuss taking on someone else," Reyja said, drawing Julian's attention back to her.

"By all means!" He took a step back toward the doors. Perhaps he'd imagined the knowing glint in the hedge mage woman's eyes. "I'll just be up at the bar, then, when you decide."

"I like him," Zevran declared the moment the private room's door swung shut. 

"Yeah?" Reyja chewed her lip. "Seems almost too good to be true, I think."

Leliana picked at her nails before offering her input. "What is the saying in Ferelden? You cannot look a gift mabari in the mouth?" 

"Not everything is mabari-related here. We say horse just like everyone else," grumbled Alistair. 

"You cannot fault me for assuming so!"

"Well… no, I suppose I can't. But I feel I should be offended on behalf of my country anyway."

From his seat between Wynne and Sten, Oghren laughed raucously. "Comin' from the king's bastard himself. There's Theirin blood in you yet, boy."

Alistair scowled. "Oh, what do you know about Marric?"

"Guys!" _This is like wrangling nugs,_ Reyja thought, rubbing her temples. "Focus."

Morrigan leaned across the table to grab the decanter of wine the barkeep had offered them free of charge. She swirled the dark liquid before tipping the last few fingers into her own goblet. "Your doctor has a most interesting story to tell. Did you not see the veil of shadow that crossed him when you spoke of magic?"

"What? He's an apostate?"

"I think he was merely in the wrong place at quite the wrong time." 

Reyja narrowed her eyes. "Would you just say what you're gonna say? We don't have time for riddles."

For a moment, their wills clashed. But Morrigan broke first. "I have heard the Chasind speak of rituals gone awry, releasing Fade spirits into the physical. They cannot survive without a vessel, so they seek one. Wherever it may be found."

"He's an abomination?" Alistair's voice trembled.

"Nothing quite so extreme. I believe the man holds a vestige of one of these spirits, not enough to control him but just enough to scare. Perhaps it lends him power beyond that which he already possessed?" Morrigan smirked and took a delicate sip of her wine. "Your Circle teachings are so constrained, you know nothing of the lesser spirits that dwell beyond the Veil. Were I to guess, I would say your doctor is playing host to the last sparks of one of them, sundered in a ritual of which he was merely an observer."

"What kind of spirit?" Reyja asked. "Wynne? Any ideas?"

The elder mage sighed. "I think not even he can tell. The spirit itself may not know, if it's as weak as Morrigan claims."

"I claim no such thing. 'Tis merely speculation."

"Well, whatever it is," Reyja snapped, losing what little patience she had left. "He said he didn't do magic. Can we trust that?"

Beside her, Wynne shifted. Another Fade spirit simmered in her veins, lending its strength without making itself known until circumstances turned dire. It seemed friendly enough, or at least content to observe. Reyja fought the urge to roll her eyes at the strange hang-ups her companions had over their dreambeasts and spells; life in the Carta had prepared her to fight, not to debate religious semantics. And they'd been moving for so long, from the Frostbacks to Gwaren and back, collecting allies in the strangest places, why should one more man, one who actually volunteered for this, unlike the rest, give them pause? Fade spirit or no, their group could use another healer. Wynne's limited energy might give out at any time, despite her claims.

_Maybe it's just part of being a mage, to cross paths with spirits beyond the Veil,_ Reyja thought. Who was she to say otherwise, when the only dreams she'd ever had came from the soul of a reawakened god in the body of a long-dead dragon? _Ugh, I just want to be done with all this._

"Someone go get him," she said, leaning back in her chair again with a long exhalation. "If he wants into this mess, I'm not gonna say no."

**Author's Note:**

> very excited that the LLY event was arranged in such a way that i could post this particular fic on my birthday. /very/ excited.


End file.
